


Recaptured Raindrops

by Crisplies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Culture, Aliens, Angst, Between Alfor and Zarkon, Character Study, Depression, Dubious Science, Galra are Giant Purple Kittens, Homesickness, Identity Issues, Lance is Watching the Memories of the Previous Blue Paladin, Langst, M/M, Memories, Memory Walking, Nightmares, OC Paladins, Partner Betrayal, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Villian motivation, Yellow Paladin Alfor, Young Zarkon and Alfor, Zarkon is a douche, not really - Freeform, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-07 01:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11612691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crisplies/pseuds/Crisplies
Summary: After asking the Blue Lion for help with his nightmares Lance is forced to live through the memories of the previous Blue Paladin and begins to learn the truth behind Zarkon's fall into darkness.





	Recaptured Raindrops

When Lance was small he was plagued by hellish nightmares that would rip him out of unconsciousness and into fierce panic attacks. He would stumble to his parent’s room, lion plushie clutched in one hand, blue blanket in the other with his dog, Taj, trailing after him. There, in his parent’s conjoined embrace and the warm pressure of his dog against his leg he felt safe and at home.

Not so much in space.

Space was cold, dark, and empty. A fact Lance didn’t realize in till he was leaving Earth’s atmosphere in a giant blue cat to take part in a war that had nothing to do with him. Facing death and pain everyday was _haunting_. Nightmares began to overrun his sleep in ways they hadn’t since he was a child, but now there was no mom, or dad, or Taj to comfort him. Instead of a warm home full of siblings and animals and family, he was in a cold mettle ship floating through the vastness of space with a group of people (and aliens) that had troubles so much worse than night terrors. . .it made his problems seemed so insignificant.

His feelings of homesickness and inadequacy were so minor in comparison to having your entire civilization destroyed, being captured and tortured by evil purple aliens, not having any clue whether your family is alive or dead, or not even knowing who or what you are. When he thought about it, there really wasn’t nothing any of his teammates could do for him, it was almost impossible for him to go home in till this war was over (which was seeming more and more impossible by the quintant). He was supposed to be a fierce paladin of Voltron, he couldn’t go crying to someone because he had a nightmare. It seemed so childish to be so shaken by something that wasn’t even real.

But. . . at the same time Lance found himself avoiding sleep as much as possible. There were days he only got a few hours of rest. He busied himself by learning Altean (with or without Pidge), he was always good at learning languages, training in the simulator, or just hanging out with his lion. He didn’t think the novelty of having a humungous robot kitty as his friend would ever wear off.

Sadly, sleep was still a vital part of a human’s function and he still had to do it, at least a little. The brunet lay curled up on his side, facing the metal wall, his skin soaked with sweat, a furrow placing itself between his eyebrows. He only wore a pair of thin royal blue pants, the knobs of his spine prominent with the curve of his body, a gnarly scar curled down the small of his back from when he had fallen out of a tree when he was twelve. A low whimper escaped his throat as his body convulsed once.

“ _Zarkon_!” A woman screamed in his mind, weak, and pleading.

The voice that seemed so familiar yet so alien to him ripped him sharply out of his unsettled sleep with a gasp. He shot out of bed so fast that he fell off his bunk, the shocking cold of the floor jolting his whole body as he panted as if he had run a mile. He clutches the blue fabric of his pants, eyeing every shadow in his room as if they were going to reach out and drag him out of the airlock. The bitter taste of heartbreak and betrayal constricting his heart, making it hard to breath.

He grimaces down at his chest, which shines with sweat. He feels dirty and scared, which is not a good combination he decides as he runs a shaking hand through his damp hair. Letting out a long tired breath he glances at the Altean clock, he still struggles with reading it but after a moment of thinking he sees that he has only slept about three earth hours. He puffed out an exasperated breath, rubbing his tired eyes before hauling himself to his feet to pull on a baggy shirt. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants as he made his way out of his room and down the hall towards the hangar.

The uneasiness he always felt traveling through the castle at night slithered up his spine, making him shiver. His footsteps seem impossibly loud in the dark, deathly quiet, alien ship. The brunet checking over his shoulder every couple of moments, the back of his neck burning as if he were being watched. He always felt as if there was a presence in the castle, just out of his view, watching him. The other paladins didn’t believe him though, even when Lance would shout that that is exactly what the first person to die in a horror movie would say. Lance decided his wariness was valid, a xenomorph wasn’t going to burst out of his chest any time soon, _nosirree_.

He felt a warm pressure on his bare foot, his mind immediately flashing to face-huggers, a loud yelp escaping his mouth as he kicked out blindly, toppling over and falling down hard onto his behind. His tailbone flared with pain, the teen flinching before spreading his knees to glare at the four small figures crouched next to his feet who were squeaking indignantly. “Don’t – don’t _do that_! _Dios_ _mio_ , you scared me half to death!” he whisper-yelled, leaning forward to scoop up the space mice gently in his palms. “What are you even doing out here?” he glowered, the mice usually slept with Allura.

Chulatt chittered, gesturing to Lance with her tiny paws and began to do a clawing motion with her tiny teeth bared. Lance internally whimpered, he was horrible at charades. “I’m. . .scary?” he guessed after a long moment. Plachu shook his head with an exasperated sound leaving his rodent lips, the grumpy mouse pointing to Lance, then to the small pink mouse beside him. “Okay, Chuchule is me.” Lance breathed, Plachu nodded before turning to the larger mouse and showing his claws, Chuchule jumped and did an exaggerated pose of being scared. “Oh, my nightmares, yeah?” Lance said as it clicked. “You guys came to check on me.” Chulatt nodded, jumping to his other hand to climb atop Platt’s head.

He couldn’t help the swell of affection for the little alien mice, they just wanted to help him. The mice were always so attuned to the paladin’s emotions and always did everything they could to help, whether it be a warm pressure on their shoulder or a soothing squeak in the ear. But nonetheless Lance let out a breath “I’m fine, guys. Really. I don’t even remember them.” Lance could admit he didn’t enjoy the nightmares in the slightest, but he could handle them. He wouldn’t dream of complaining about them, not with all the hardships his team had gone through already. Keith had almost been beaten to death by the Blade of Marmora and the farthest he had complained was a small wince of discomfort every so often. Lance could (and had been) handle a bad dream.

Plachu glared at him with his beady red eyes as if to say ‘ _you’re an idiot’_.

Lance glares right back for a moment, he glances down the dark hallways “I was going to go see Blue, wanna come with?” all the mice squeak and jumped about – Lance took that as a yes. He raised his hand up to place them on his shoulders.

The blue paladin made it into his lions’s hangar, the right leg of Voltron crouched with her barrier already deactivated, as if she were inviting him in. “Heya, Blue.” Lance said, not receiving any response but a vague mental nod of acknowledgment. Blue rarely did much more than that, the last time she ‘spoke’ (if it could be called that) to him was when she had been guiding him to the Castle of Lions at the very beginning of his space adventure. He could faintly feel her emotions in the heat of battle when their bond was the strongest and he would sometimes get the vague sense of comfort when he went to her feeling especially down.

“I brought the space mice today, hope you don’t mind.” He told her, placing a hand on her cool chin in a silent plea to be allowed inside. Blue’s jaw unlatched and opened smoothly with a hiss of steam and Lance quickly walked to the cockpit behind the robot’s eyes. Diagrams and stats lit up as lance sat down in his chair but the paladin paid them no head and instead leaned back and let out another silent breath.

“I had a nightmare again.” He said after a moment; Blue was an unjudgmental being who Lance always felt was listening in her own way and over time she had become someone Lance could rant to about his day and his feelings. She never reacted to his words and Lance never expected her to, she was an alien warship after all, not a therapy cat.

“I still can’t remember them, but I wake up scared and I have this . . . feeling of betrayal? I don’t know, but it’s becoming a problem.” He confessed, shoulders slumping in dejection. “I miss home, Blue.” He breaths, bringing his legs up to hug them to his chest and rest his chin on his knees. “I miss my family, and the ocean, the sky . . . rain.”

“Do you have a home, Blue?” he asks, not expecting an answer. “Where were you born? Or created, I guess? I bet wherever it was it was beautiful.” There’s a silent pause and when Lance blinks he is not looking at the cockpit but instead at icy mountains and grey skies, a glass like ground and rain drizzling softly from the clouds above. He blinks in awe, turning in a full circle to take in the amazing image before him. It looks nothing like he has ever seen, he takes a couple steps forward, his bare feet slipping on the smooth ice. He knows realistically that he should be freezing, and he is in a distant sort of way. The air is cool and refreshing, nothing like the stale alien air in the castle. Tilting his head skywards to feel the rain against his face he lets out a breathless laugh and can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face before he is snapped back to the cockpit. He pushed down the disappointment of only getting a brief glimpse of what he assumes is Blue’s home and places a hand on the dash and whispers a quiet thank you, pushing as much gratitude as he can into their bond.

He doesn’t know how long he just sits there and stares at nothing, but the mice have gone to sleep. “I’m tired.” He chokes out, he gets the vague notion that Blue jerks in surprise at his random confession. “I’m so tired, Blue. I just want to sleep.” His throat tightens painfully and he swallows thickly, fighting back tears of frustration and stress. He buries his face into his knees, shoulders trembling as he cries silently. It’s been a long time since he’s cried, but he knows that Blue wont judge him so he lets himself do so, not allowing himself to feel ashamed for doing so.

He must’ve tired himself out because the next thing he knew he is slumped sideways in his chair with Blue gently urging him to slip into unconsciousness, he listens to her for it has been almost a year since she has interacted with him in such a way. He is too tired to notice the grim determination and tinge of guilt the blue lion feels as she digs into her paladin’s mind and unlocks something deep inside. It is dangerous, she knows. But it is the only thing she can think of to help her paladin sleep.

 

* * *

 

“. . . see any survivors?”

“I’m picking up something, Alfor, lift the beam.”

“Just because you’re the _Black_ _Paladin_ doesn’t—“

“ _Alfor_!”

“Okay, okay. I’m lifting, I’m lifting. Sheesh.”

“Aren’t princes’ supposed to be more mature?”

“Sometimes I really hate you . . .”

Too loud. Lance woke to a splitting headache and an aching spine as well as a paralyzing sense of terror that twisted around his pounding heartbeat that could put a hummingbird’s to shame. His ears twitched and folded back as the loud groaning of straining wood stabbed into his ears, making his head pound and pain to shoot down his spine as he flinched away from the raucous noise. He squinted open his glowing yellow eyes at the sudden light flooding into his hiding place, light ricocheted inside his head uncomfortably for a moment before they adjusted to the sudden brightness. He saw indistinct fuzzy shapes stalking closer and promptly shut them again with a whimper, pressing back as far as he could go.

“It’s a Galra kit!”

“I can see that, thank you.”

Too loud! Their voices were making his insides throb in agony, he snarled at them instead of talking for when he had tried to tell them to bugger off it had come out as a painful croaky whimper instead. His entire body vibrated with his growls as one of them picked him up and gingerly brought him out of his hiding places, the prickle of claws against his sides impossibly gently. Then he was pressed into something hard and cold and _very_ uncomfortable. He growled his displeasure, his skin felt far too sensitive. The growl immediately cutting off into a shriek of fear as someone poked and prodded at him, he shied away from the contact and farther into the cold and uncomfortable surface, preferring that over whoever was stabbing at him with their fingers. These strangers didn’t seem to understand that he was hurt and would _like them to stop, thank you_. He felt as if he had been shoved into the path of an angry hengraugi mother (he didn’t know what an hengraugi was, this didn’t feel right) and somehow lived through the ordeal. He barked weakly, hoping whoever was touching him would stop at the abrupt sound.

He got the sudden idea to call for his mother, she would get them to stop. His mom was scary! But when he tried his sandpaper throat constricted and sent him into a coughing fit.

“Alfor, stop.”

“She’s hurt, I have to – “

Lance scrunches up his face, to confused and hurt to notice that the person poking him was using the wrong pronoun. He pushed himself up and away from the hard surface he was being held against, claws scratching against the smooth metal uncomfortably. He wobbled alarmingly as he pushed away from the support, but a hand came up to steady him long before he could fall. He blinked blurrily, the fuzzy shapes coming in and out of focus for a moment before finally settling.

His yellow eyes locking with a brighter yellow, Lance’s ears pulled back in fear as he realized he was being held in the arms of the biggest Gala he had ever seen (whom seemed strangely familiar) clad in white and black armor. They stared at each other, neither blinking before the Galra fidgeted uncomfortably and mumbled out a gentle “Hello.” Lance got the feeling it was more to comfort him then anything. His gaze flickered over to the other person who was poking and prodding him, it was a tall Altean built like a pole with long white hair tied back in intricate braids who reminded him alarmingly of Allura.

“You know nothing of children.” The young Altean in the yellow and white armor stated bluntly.

“Neither do you!” The Galra holding him snapped.

Lance whimpered quietly at the growl in the intimidating Galra’s voice. The Altean shifted his strange alien blue eyes to him and smiled gently, it did nothing to quell his unease. Where was he? Where was his Adi?

“Adi?” He whispered, his voice light and feminine with a childish lilt to it.

“What is Adi?” Alfor asked the tall purple alien holding him.

“Mother.” He told him.

Instead of thinking of his own mother who had short curly brown hair, dark skin, and warm disposition his mind was flooded with images of a female Galra who was unfamiliar to him but at the same time he felt like he knew her. She had soft violet fur and warm yellow eyes and his heart constricted at the memory of her purring with him in her arms. “Adi?” he asked Zarkon hopefully, looking around for her with his ears perked. Only to shrink back at the sight of his home destroyed and the town he had lived in all his life in fiery ruins. Black smoke rose from the decimated houses as far as he could see, the sky a eerie crimson. The plant life around him was burnt to black husks, he didn’t know how anyone could survive this destruction, let alone him.

“Your Adi isn’t here.”

“Hey – “

“What, am I supposed to lie to her? Give her false hope?” the Galra demanded, holding Lance tighter to his chest. At this moment Lance realized that he wasn’t in control of this body, as if he were just a backseat driver to all that preceded. Because while he would’ve been content to sit here in the comfortable embrace of this Galra his body began to struggle, kicking and flailing and screaming in denial. Lance felt all of the emotions coursing through his body, the fear, the crushing sadness and guilt, everything. But above all the overwhelming need for his mother, his Adi, apparently. He had to find her! So, Lance did something he thought was the only appropriate for the situation at hand.

He kicked the Galra in the face.

Pain shot up from the heel of his foot to his hip, the male grunted in surprise rather than pain but he did loosen his grip enough for Lance to wriggle out of it and fall to the ground hard. Alfor squawked in shock as Lance bolted past him, ducking under his outstretched hand and diving between fallen wooden panels inside a collapsed house. He scrambled back as far as he could go but nevertheless if one of the two aliens wanted to grab him they could easily reach in and do so.

He waited for a long time.

He waited through a long, agitated argument that he was too panicked to listen to. He waited in till the sound of conversation faded into silence and he continued to wait. No one attempted to drag him out, which surprised him since it would’ve been all to easy to do so. Though, after the shadows had visibly shifted with the sun a pair of black boots came into his small field of vision. He pressed himself further into the rubble but didn’t make a sound as the boots shifted, crossing at the ankles as the Galra sat down fluidly. A moment later a gloved hand appeared, making his hackles raise and his teeth bared in preparation to bite. But all the hand did was set down a canister well within Lance’s reach and then disappeared back over the lip of the wooden beam he was hiding under.

He didn’t do anything for a long time, his glowing yellow eyes flickering between the canister, its contents unknown, and the small sliver of legs he could view in his hiding place. But he was so thirsty, and his sharp eyes could see the perspiration on the side of the canister, slowly sliding along the smooth surface and unto the ash filled ground. At a glacial pace he reached out, snatching the bottle and bringing it protectively to his chest. He sniffed the inside carefully but as far as he could tell it was just water. So, without any more hesitation he brought it to his mouth and gulped greedily at the ice cold water, not caring that the water sloshed past the lip of the bottle and soaked into his sleeveless black shirt.

He paused in his hurried drinking when Zarkon began to growl in satisfaction, a soothing sound that tempted his anxiety to ease, if only slightly. Galra communicated with others not only through speech but also a simpler base of growls and barks, at least that was what Allura had told him in a lesson about their enemy. Though the princess had mainly focused on their weaknesses and not their culture.

“I will not harm you, little one. This I swear.” The young Galra told him, the purr that vibrated in his chest making his words vibrate pleasantly. He was still hesitant though, he didn’t know this male, or Alfor, so he didn’t know if they could be trusted. He yearned for his Adi’s wisdom and began to howl despairingly for his mother. She always came when he called, though he could never remember this Adi doing so, it was just a feeling. He found himself thinking of his own mother in Cuba as well, she would know what to do in this situation as well. He quieted as the unfamiliar Galra whistled and barked a series of soothing sounds.

“You do not have to come out if you do not want to. But my friends our expecting us, I would hate to keep them waiting and I cannot leave you here.”

Lance stayed tucked inside his hiding place for a few more silent minutes. His gaze never leaving the black boots only a few arms lengths away. He took in a deep breath before he shifted his weight to begin and crawl out. There was a painful moment where he was half way out and the armored Galra in front of him had shifted his weight and sent Lance back under yet again like a frightened bunny, having to redo the agonizingly slow process all over again. This time the stranger was as still as stone, not daring to move and spook him again. As soon as Lance had crawled all the way out of the collapsed building he jumped well out of his reach and watched him warily. The male didn’t seemed bothered by is wariness and just watched him. Lance dared to look away to look for the Altean, he didn’t want to be grabbed from behind.

“Alfor has gone to look for more survivors.” He was beginning to feel the other Galra could read minds.

He licked his lips and took a deep breath “Who. . . who are you?” his sandpaper throat had been soothed by the water ha had been given, allowing him to talk normally. Well. . . his voice was oddly high pitched then he was used to.

“I am the Black Paladin of Voltron, Triskiol ru Zarkon.”

 _Zarkon_?!

Lance was even more sure that he was not in control of this body because he didn’t start screaming and running the opposite direction like he really really _really_ wanted to.

“And your name, little one?” the scene continued to play out before him despite Lance’s internal freak out. This didn’t look anything like the Zarkon Lance knew, this Zarkon was young and had an aura of naivety and gentleness about him. His warm yellow eyes that were certainly not the bone chilling purple that had haunted Lance for weeks after the encounter.

“Khashi ru Kyla.” Lance’s mouth opened without his say so.

“Honor and peace upon you and yours, Kyla.” Zarkon said with a gentle smile, he didn’t even know Zarkon had ever had the ability to smile.

Lance didn’t know what was going on but he would like to wake up _right now please!_

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! I hope you guys enjoyed it and that it wasn't too confusing! Zarkon and Alfor are teens here and though Zarkon is grumpy he isn't yet a crazy galaxy conquering maniac yet. I really wanna explore what made Zarkon betray his own paladin team and kill them and take over the galaxy when he used to be the one defending it and this was the best way i could think of doing it! :P  
> Please tell me what you thought and constructive criticism is always welcome! :) Plus comments fuel my creativity so if you liked it... ;)  
> See y'all next chapter!


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